


Do you know eternity?

by Emeka



Category: Suikoden I
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21998860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeka/pseuds/Emeka
Summary: A gifted moment in rest.
Relationships: Luc/Tir McDohl
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Do you know eternity?

It's not quite five in the morning. The air is still, for now, though in a half-hour's time he's sure people will be up and about, getting ready for what's to occur later.

Tir has found himself too restless to sleep for long... and what he managed was fragmented, full of dreams of the dead. His room felt like a coffin, the castle like a mausoleum. Perhaps that makes just being outside of it a cemetery, but out here on the balcony, it doesn't feel like it.

He feels the slumbering energy of the world. It is in the soft, aqua-tinged breezes, and the sound of the lake lapping at the rocks and knowing it extends far beyond where his eyes can see, where the water turns black before some other shore. It is sweet pre-dawn out here and he shivers a little as he takes it all in.

"Couldn't sleep?"

Tir leans forward, elbows on the cool stone. "Not much. You?"

"I always wake early," the voice answers without really answering. The owner of it walks closer until he's in arm's length beside him. Tir knows who it is without looking, but he looks because it's the polite thing to do (and one of them has to be) and because looking at Luc is always a pleasure.

Even more so, like this. Maybe it's the intimacy of the low light, or his own wistful mood. But he could swear he has never seen his eyes so bright, as though full of starlight. "Anxious about later?"

"Never." Luc's smile is an unusually half-hearted pass for his typical smirk. "I'm looking forward to not having to exert myself so much."

"You're going back to Lady Leknaat afterward?" It's just to make conversation; he'd figured as much. But talking to anyone about 'after' is too sad for him to go around making conversation about it. He doesn't want to know what they wanted to do if they die, or if the war effort fails. Too much to have on his conscience.

"Mhm." Luc's gaze slides from his face to his hand. The smile drops entirely. "It's been a few years since it was given to you."

Tir nods. His hand twitches with the sudden urge to withdraw it.

"You haven't changed," he says flatly. "You must have noticed yourself by now."

"Yes." It's not so noticeable yet, when he's still a young man either way. But in just a few more years... or ten down the line, thirty, fifty... a hundred? He will look no more older than this, just like Ted. "It's strange, isn't it? I could live forever if no one killed me."

"What do you know about forever?" Luc mutters, looking back out onto the lake. The breeze softly ruffles his hair against his cheek and not for the first time Tir wonders what it smells like.

His imagination makes him pause a moment as it automatically runs through the possibilities (nonscented? surprisingly sweet or floral? something androgynous?) before he can reply. "Not much, yet. But you are also--the Rune on your hand--"

It had only been mentioned that once, and he had honestly nearly forgotten. "How old are you, Luc?"

"None of your business." Then, "younger than you."

"Aw, then what are you giving me a hard time for? You don't know either, right?"

"Of course I do," he says, with a sharp little jerk of the chin. His arms fold, the marked hand on top, thoughtlessly or purposefully who can say. His voice thaws from cool contempt and grows steadily warmer. "It's just an idea to you. Have you ever thought it all out? That everyone you know is going to die before you? Some of them as sacrifices because of you?"

"If I thought about that, I can't... I couldn't..." Tir trails off. Suffering the loses he already has is bad enough. If he lingered on the idea of there being more to come he's not sure how much will he'd have left to fight.

"That's what I mean. It's nothing to you."

He grabs his hand, pulls it toward him. Luc gives him an absolutely scathing look but does not try to extricate himself. "So then, why don't we stay together? We both have True Runes. We can keep each other company." His thumbs press on the sides of the True Wind Rune, framing it, then rubbing up the sides. Luc's hand is so delicate compared to his, like he could break it as easily as a porcelain plate if he just pressed hard enough. It's even as cool as porcelain. Naturally, he wonders, or from the night air?

"You'd just get me killed."

Tir's head droops a little, his thumbs squeeze tighter. He can't really dismiss the possibility. But the thing he has always known, and tried not to know, seems too close now. He'll do his best to live until the end, whenever it comes, and maybe despite the cost to others. That dream that made his room a coffin had after all been nothing but the truth; bound to the Soul Eater, death will follow him and take from him. The weight is too heavy on his chest. He's too much of a live-day-to-day person for this kind of thing, really.

"Don't make that face," Luc scolds. From Gremio it would be soft, reassuring, upbeat and firm from Cleo, but from Luc it is abrasive, nothing more than a scold. Still, his other hand grasps tightly onto Tir's right hand. "It's such a pain to comfort people."

"Sorry..."

He clicks his tongue. Even in this impatient mood--no, especially in it--he is beautiful and distant. The light glimmering in his eyes swirls with every little motion of his head. "You're going to be so hopeless without me around. How are you going to get a grip?"

Tir manages a smile. All he can do when he can't take his eyes off him. It's disrupting the connection between his mouth and brain, the adorable scrunch of his eyebrows, memories of his nape he has seen on occasion. All the times he has thought of the peachlike roundness of his cheek, just touching it, but to kiss--

"Ah." Luc's eyes seem to darken. His expression relaxes, becomes not quite placid. Like his voice, there is, always, the edge of something sarcastic beneath. "So that's what you're about."

Tir forces himself to stay still. Don't explain or get defensive. The possibility he's been found out fills him with relief, actually. It has been such a tiring thing to hide--not that it must be, but it would be inconvenient on them both when he was sure it was unreciprocated (and hasn't it been made clear that it is, even on a platonic level) and there were more important things to worry about than who he is attracted to. It's really unnecessary right before the end, he supposes, but it is one more weight off.

“Well,” Luc continues, “I’m not surprised.”

Tir breathes out in apprehension. He expects—something--another scold, at least, for the temerity, but Luc merely gives the smallest of nods in acknowledgement. His eyes soften on the surface, as if thinking of something far away. Something mean is still beneath but even that--”then--” Tir says aloud, on top a swell inside his foolhardy breast.

“I will not be your lover. I will not follow you after this. But... perhaps you can settle for a moment’s respite.” He puffs his chest up, and again he looks the same as Tir has known him all this while. An arrogant, kind of snotty kid, but still lovely. “Even though I doubt Lady Leknaat intended me to provide that sort of service.”

It’s not his responsibility, he means. He has no obligation. But that just makes it all the more special.

They go back to Tir’s bedroom. The coffin memory-feel remains but it settles into the background as his mind turns to how to do what he will. He imagines the audacity of undressing him for himself, slipping off the layers of cloth to find satin beneath, but they are barely-formed before Luc begins to unrobe. Tir quietly follows suit.

The barely dawn light gilds every expanse of bared skin, giving him the look of a picture in watercolor. The sunrise burns like embers in his eyes and he feels it when they touch, just fingers at first numbly grasping skin, then lips. For all his posturing he can’t imagine Luc is any more experienced at this than he is. Is bull-headed confidence really all it takes?

They don’t communicate much in words, as they probably should. How far? he whispers. Quick and easy, Luc says. Doesn’t set the mood but he gets the point. Too little time. But his urges fill with satisfaction just running his palms down Luc’s barely defined upper arms. They manage over to the bed and he gluts on touching and kissing everything he can reach. Jaw, cheek, hair. All other considerations fade.

The room is quiet except for the sound of their bodies together, the susurrus of skin on skin. Luc breathes quietly on through, eyes never quite closing, and never shying away even when Tir presses their pelvises and sexes together in, he supposes, a form of sex. Half-hard, they both line up. He’d close his eyes to soak in the feeling of his first sexual experience with another, but he needs the sight filling up his field of view and head. More to fill his mind with.

He shifts and stutters their bodies together, upper body lowering until their foreheads meet and their eyes do not. Not on his end at least, though for all he knows Luc is still staring right at him. It’s easier to look down between them and see where their skin meets. 

He looks until he finally finishes, stuttering to a stop. It takes all his strength not to collapse. Was it just him? Probably just him. Luc still _feels_ hard against his belly anyway but when he reaches down to give him a little manual assistance, Luc grabs his wrist, and his forehead shakes back and forth against his.

Tir feels bad about flopping over onto his back, no longer even touching, to provide some pleasure at least if not comfort. But it’s not really for him to argue the boundaries of this, since this is only being done as a favor to him anyway.

“Thanks,” he says. Not just this. For everything. For his support, even if it was only at Lady Leknaat’s behest. For his sympathy, which he admitted as much himself was not. The sun is coming up and now, for now, his after-war worries are distant.

He’s too relaxed to even jerk when a hand layers over his, though his mind does. The thumb rubs hard up and down over the back, in the space between one metacarpal and the next.

“It feels like a cage, doesn’t it?”

Before he can formulate any sort of response Luc pulls away and sits on the edge of the bed. His facing back gives off a pearly glow under the soft brush of his hair. “I need to bathe before things get too busy. I’ll see you later.”

Tir murmurs an assent as he watches Luc dress, not personally offended by this show of indifference, as he never has been. His hand still burns with the caress he received in turn, pulsing with blood and the warmth given to it. He’s not sure if it’s the Rune, or his own body reacting. The difference is probably negligible at this point.

Very soon, he’ll need to go back to being in charge of things. That will be stressful too but for now he feels a refreshing sort of ache in his body. For now, he can put these suffocating thoughts behind him.


End file.
